The day Cleveland’s been waiting for has arrived. Art Modell is taking his soul to the great owner’s box in the sky.

Curiously, whoever runs the Modell Death Watch hadn’t updated the website by midday. Could they have suffered an attack of conscience?

Most Clevelanders hopefully are above celebrating a man’s death. But there are always the holdouts.

“He was still public enemy No. 1,” the retrospective in the Cleveland Plain Dealer said.

The paper sampled the local social media reaction. There was some sympathy, some indifference and a fair amount of glee. If the Dawg Pound can’t stop gnawing at Modell’s leg today, it never will.

That says more about the haters than the hated. Modell has his flaws, but any balanced look at his 87 years would see the good outweighed the bile.

Yes, Cleveland. He did move the Browns to Baltimore in 1996.

No, Cleveland. Modell did not talk LeBron into taking his talents to South Beach, draft Tim Couch or get Blondie into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

What he did was more than enough to deserve a bust in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Modell was one of the visionaries who made the NFL an American religion.

He shaped the TV deals that brought us Monday Night Football and established NFL Films. He helped negotiate the first collective bargaining agreement, and he paved the way for the NFL-AFL merger.

You would never find a more beloved owner among the players, whom he loved to a fault. Modell gave fans something to cheer for, with two NFL titles and 28 winning seasons in 43 years.

He made Ozzie Newsome the NFL’s first African-American general manager, and donated millions of dollars to charity.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All that, and the first thing you thought of Thursday was, “That’s the guy who ripped out Cleveland’s heart.”

Books have been written debating the move to Baltimore, so we sure aren’t going to settle things here. It’s apparent both Cleveland politicians and Modell share the blame. But it’s always easier and more satisfying to bash the owner.

Modell became the national caricature of the Robber Baron in the skybox. Sports Illustrated ran a cartoon cover of him hitting a Cleveland fan/Dawg in the gut.

“Art Modell sucker-punched Cleveland, but the city is fighting back,” the caption read.

The city sued, its citizens vilified, the Modell Death Watch began. “November 6, 1995 Until Forever,” it says.

It hasn’t been updated since last October, but you can still click to read testimonials from fans vowing to urinate on Modell’s grave.

Losing an NFL team hurts, but sheesh. Modell was a Cleveland pillar for 30 years. In his younger days, he’d hang out in bars with fans. At the end, he needed two armed bodyguards if he went out in public.

Modell was 15 when his father died, and he dropped out of school to work in the Brooklyn shipyard. He became a classic American success story.

He said he’d have gone bankrupt if the Browns had stayed in Cleveland. For a man raised in the Depression, leaving nothing for his family was unthinkable. Staying at decrepit Cleveland Municipal Stadium was not an option.

“The politicians and bureaucrats saw fit to cover their own rear ends by blaming it on me,” Modell said in a 1999 interview.

Ohio historians can debate that for eternity. But the city came up with money to build a basketball arena, a baseball stadium and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

It found a way to finance a new football stadium after Modell left. Cleveland also got worldwide sympathy. It got to keep the Browns’ nickname and colors.

It got a new team in four years. Houston, St. Louis and Baltimore could only wish they’d been shafted like that.

No matter, Modell could never set foot in Cleveland again. The locals have all but threatened anarchy whenever Modell gets nominated for a bust in Canton.

“I believe Art belongs in the Hall of Fame,” former Giants owner Wellington Mara said. “I don’t think I know a person who has done more for the league.”

Mara was elected in 1997 and died eight year later. Modell should have lived long enough to make his own acceptance speech, but he died of natural causes early Thursday morning.

Someone please alert the Modell Death Watch that forever has arrived.

Public Enemy No. 1 will be buried next to his wife in a cemetery outside Baltimore. Surely, even the most bitter Cleveland fans will let him rest in peace.

The days of Modell wanting a new stadium are long gone. Now just a little respect would be nice.